The equipment was a scanner which went between the keyboard and PC so you did not need any specialist software, it just imitated the information being typed in.
Good news! I won a couple of these off eBay for £ 11 the pair, and one of them works* just as you describe, Robert. It uses PS/2 male and female connections (plus a "little box") that connect between the keyboard and the PC, as you mention. There is a DC input socket on the box, but the thing seems to work OK without any power other than what it
filches from the PC PS/2 connector (5 VDC between pins 3 and 4, of course).
There's a button on the scanner handle to flash the barcode. The thing bleeps as it recognises the barcode, and plonks (yes, a good technical term, that) the code in normal ASCII characters wherever on the screen your keyboard cursor happens to be patiently waiting (
eg, in a NotePad text file, database field, spreadsheet cell, DOS command line ... wherever). Or even right here (look):-
0106945764400014
(although that was seen as a "download" for some reason ... interesting)
Brilliant! And no need for software (Billy) ... just an initial re-boot.
OK, now I'm looking forward to
hours of fun, Mate ... you know, looking out for all the various barcode types to try (and, er, collect)!
*
The other may need a bit of coaxing into life!
